The committee will undertake detailed scrutiny of three Private Members' Bills: the Homeless Prevention Bill 2020, sponsored by Deputy Ó Broin; the Tenancy Protection Bill 2023, sponsored by Deputy Cian O'Callaghan; and the Dereliction and Building Regeneration Bill 2022, sponsored by me.
We will consider the Homeless Prevention Bill. I invite Deputy Ó Broin to introduce the Bill and go through it for members.
I thank the Chair. The origin of the Bill arose from my experience, which is probably similar to that of other committee members, of working with people who were at risk of homelessness. They might have received a notice of termination or there might have been some other circumstance relating to their accommodation that led them to face a moment where they knew they would have to leave that accommodation. While some supports were in place, which I will refer to shortly, there was no obligation or responsibility on the part of the local authority to do anything until the point at which their due date, for example, fell. Typically, somebody would get an eviction notice and then notify his or her local authority. At that point, the local authority would ask that person to come to it on the day his or her due date was up, if he or she had nowhere else to go, and it would provide emergency accommodation. Back then, the homeless housing assistance payment, HAP, as it was, was originally only available for people who were in emergency accommodation and not for those who were at risk of homelessness. Some of the other supports that have since been put in place were not there.
Around that time, in England and Wales, legislation with the same title as this Bill was introduced. That legislation placed a very clear statutory obligation on a local authority to meet, discuss and put in place a homeless prevention plan at a set time before the date upon which somebody would become homeless. One of the weaknesses of our system is that Opposition Members cannot table legislation that places a financial charge on the State. While the intention behind this Bill is to very much to place an obligation on the local authority to work with an individual or family to put a homeless prevention plan in place in advance of the date on which they are to become homeless, I am precluded from doing that so the language is somewhat weaker. The intention of the Bill, which is in three subsections, is to, first, in real terms, provide a legal definition of what "at risk of homelessness" means. No such definition is currently on our Statute Book. Second, section 1(2) creates the option - I would much prefer it to be an obligation but it is option for the reasons stated - for the local authority to put that plan in place. The subsequent subsections set out the types of person to which the Bill would be applicable. The most obvious is where there is a notice of termination but there are many other categories, which are listed.
It is important to state that the Bill was tabled in 2020 and things have changed since then. For example, in Dublin, homeless HAP, which is 50% above the base rate, has changed. At one point, it was available four weeks before notice of termination, then eight weeks, and it is now available 12 weeks in advance of such a notice. That is materially relevant to the 60-day timeline proposed in the Bill. Homeless HAP, although it is not called that, also exists outside Dublin but at a lower rate of 30%, and there are some differences in when it becomes available. At the time the Bill was published, the tenant in situ scheme had been closed by the then Minister, Eoghan Murphy, and remained closed. It has been reopened since then. As I said to the Minister the other day, while I would have liked to see it opened much earlier, certainly social housing tenant in situ is working very well in quite a number of local authorities. That is also materially relevant to this Bill, although cost-rental tenant in situ is still functioning much more poorly.
Any consideration of this Bill, and if we were to get to Committee Stage to consider amendments, would have to take those issues into account. The core principle, however, remains the same. Today, if somebody is at risk of homelessness, there is no obligation on the local authority to do anything. People can go to a local authority and a good local authority official will ask whether they know that tenant in situ is available, and tell them to talk to their landlord to ask that landlord to contact the relevant section of the local authority. Likewise, there is no obligation on the council to make people aware of homeless HAP, although, again, a good official will do that.
I certainly have a lot of experience, as do my colleagues, of people when they get their notice, for example, and, if they are HAP tenants, inform the HAP section of their local authority, but nobody communicates anything with them. The practice, therefore, is very patchy. Whether a soft option or a hard obligation is placed on the local authority to have a formalised process, once people are at risk of homelessness, they should be brought in, sat down, and there should be a discussion whereby they are supported. Getting a notice of termination is incredibly stressful and traumatic for people, particularly those who might have been through it before, as is having to run around to speak to people like us, or Threshold, to get advice. While our support services are available and very important, it would be much better if there was something centralised and streamlined. Therefore, I still think the Bill, in its intention if not in all the detail of its wording, is as valid today as it was previously. In fact, given that we have homeless HAP and tenant in situ, it is even more valuable.
During the Second Stage debate, the Minister raised one issue that I want to let the committee know about because people may not have been there or were not Dáil Members. The Minister outlined some language issues. The one he mentioned in particular was the use of the phrase "armed forces" instead of "Defence Forces". That is because we took the original text of the Bill from the English and Welsh legislation. Again, there are some relatively minor technical issues that would need to be dealt with by way of amendment.
Given the fact there has been an increase in the number of notices of termination, that there is still an increase month on month in the number of people entering emergency accommodation, and that only 5% of the homeless budget, which is now more than €300 million, that comes from the Department to our local authorities goes on prevention, anything that strengthens the preventative arm of homeless services in the work of local authorities is worthy of support. I would be very happy, if we get to Committee Stage, to accept friendly amendments and amendments that improve the Bill. This is an issue that members who are present have all raised regularly and are strongly engaged with. Prevention is better than cure, however. On that basis, I hope to get support from other members.
I thank the Deputy for his presentation of the Bill. I easily understand why he brought the Bill forward in 2020. I presume he worked on it in 2019. However, he rightly mentioned that the world has changed very dramatically since then.
The Bill would need to be updated as regards notice periods. The Bill references 60 days. That would have to be changed to 90 days. Is that what the Deputy is suggesting?
Does the Chair want me to take questions in general or-----
Is that okay?
We will take them one at a time and have the discussion. The question was on 60 days to 90 days.
Would the Bill have to state 90 days?
Not necessarily. Whether people get a 90-day notice, which is the most common one at present, or shorter or longer notice for those who have been in a property for less than a year, whatever the length of the notice, the crucial thing about the time period and the real issue is what is a reasonable period to require the local authority to put a homeless prevention plan in place. It could align with 90 days.
The English legislation is 40 days. I believe a two-month period, at a minimum, is required. I am not tied to it, however.
We have moved on and most tenancies have 90 days, but the more valuable change that has been made for tenants is that landlords are required to notify the RTB and the notice to quit must be validated. Would the Deputy consider amending the definition of when the homeless prevention plan needs to be put in place to coincide with that date? If we are to consider this, we need to consider how it needs updating. That would be one of the ways of updating it.
The earlier the prevention plan is in place, the better. If the Senator is asking whether the local authority's obligation should kick in on the issuance of the eviction notice, it would be the optimum point for it to kick in. It is important to note that although the RTB is notified of the termination, the local authority is not notified. Legislation brought forward by the Labour Party which is on the list of Bills that have passed Second Stage suggested the RTB, on receipt of that notification, should notify the local authority as a matter of course. Not all tenants who receive notices are on a local authority waiting list or would necessarily qualify. I would have no objection to the obligation kicking in at the point of issuance of the notice. The only thing to consider in that regard is whether, in the case of those who have the longest notices, that is, eight-month notices, eight months is too long. That would need to be considered.
Among the changes that have been brought in are homeless HAP and tenant in situ, which has been extended nationally, as well as housing support workers. They were not in place back in 2020. There are now housing support advisers or workers and key workers assigned to people. To be fair, the key workers are assigned to people who are in homelessness and emergency accommodation.
The Deputy stated the number of notices to quit is increasing, but does he have any analysis that shows the increase is proportionate to the population increase? Is it increasing in real terms? How many tenancies are not already benefiting from tenant in situ, the extra notice period, homeless HAP, a key worker or a housing support worker? How many tenancies are at risk of needing this legislation? I do not know whether the Deputy has those figures.
The Senator has raised three separate points. Most local authorities do not have support workers or key workers, including for homeless services.
That is because the majority of homelessness is in Dublin.
Not all local authorities in Dublin, for example, operate that system.
The DRHE does, however. It operates for the four local authorities.
For example, there are many people currently in emergency accommodation provided via the DRHE who do not have key workers.
I am not trying to be pedantic. The service is there from the DRHE.
I ask the Senator to allow me to go through the answer. The first issue is that not all people in emergency accommodation have access to a key worker or a support worker or a place finder service, which is the other new service that has been introduced. Some of those services are not provided by the DRHE. Support workers and place finders are provided by the four individual local authorities. South Dublin County Council and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council have neither service. Although the DRHE has key workers or contracts that out to homeless service NGOs, the number of key workers compared with the rising incidence of homelessness means they cannot get to everybody. It is not uncommon, even for people who are in the Dublin City Council area, not to have access to those workers. However, the fact those things exist supports the need for a more formalised homelessness prevention plan. It would make it more systematic. Likewise with homeless HAP and tenant in situ, there is now a set of supports and, in some areas, workers who can assist, but there is no mechanism to ensure all that is made available at the most appropriate time in a co-ordinated way. Therefore, we still hear stories, not just in my constituency and other parts of Dublin but also outside the county, of people who do not know homeless HAP or tenant in situ exist. Nobody is obliged to tell them about those services and that creates difficulties.
As regards the number of eviction notices, one of the problems is that the requirement for landlords to notify the RTB was introduced in two phases. The first phase involved a soft requirement to do so, but if that was not done, it did not invalidate the notice. From the middle of last year, landlords were not only required to notify the RTB, but failure to do so would invalidate the notice. We only have accurate data on eviction notices from the middle of last year. That is a total of five quarters. It is showing a consistent figure of approximately 5,000 per quarter, up or down. We also know, however, there has been an increase in the number of disputes with the RTB. Probably the most important figure is the significant increase in the number of people entering emergency accommodation in that period, although it dipped in some months. On average, between 200 and 300 people entered emergency accommodation. There is no doubt that if we listen anecdotally to what landlords and Threshold are saying and look at our constituency profiles, we see an increasing number of people who are dealing with notices. The majority of those people do not present for emergency accommodation but that has been increasing.
The final question related to-----
I asked whether there has been an assessment of the number of tenancies likely to require this legislation, other than from anecdotal evidence.
The only figure we have is the month-on-month increase or decrease in the number of people in emergency accommodation. That is a useful metric. In fairness, the Government has made it much clearer by distinguishing between preventions and exits. The quarterly progress reports provide information on the number of people who presented to a local authority at risk of homelessness and were prevented from becoming homeless, either through the Threshold-run tenancy sustainment service involving rent supplement top-ups, or through a local authority allocation, a new homeless HAP allocation or tenant in situ. We only get that for the Dublin region, rather than State-wide. That gives some data but it does not give the full picture.
I thank Deputy Ó Broin for bringing forward the Bill. I am surprised that there is no definition of what constitutes being at risk of homelessness It is one of the key criteria. In the case of tenant in situ or cost rental, a person has to be deemed to be at risk of homelessness. The Deputy probably started crafting the Bill in 2019 or 2020. Has a definition been provided in other legislation? As things stand, each local authority may be judging risk of homelessness by different criteria.
It is not that they may be doing so; they are doing so. Homeless HAP is a good example in that regard. It was originally for people who were homeless. Under the current system, a person is considered homeless if he or she is in emergency accommodation. I do not believe there is a statutory underpinning for that but the common practice has been that once a person is in emergency accommodation, he or she is officially deemed homeless and gets a set of supports. What happened with homeless HAP was that individual local authorities, particularly from the period when homelessness began to accelerate, started to make their own decisions regarding the point at which people become eligible for homeless HAP. The Dublin local authorities decided to start extending homeless HAP to people who were not yet in emergency accommodation. Even then, there were differences. In my local authority, South Dublin County Council, those in HAP accommodation and four weeks out from a notice were offered homeless HAP. That was not done initially in the case of those in RAS accommodation, however, because the RAS legislation has a requirement on the local authority to rehouse a person at the point when they must leave the property. The council realised it could not get replacement RAS tenancies and it then started to provide homeless HAP.
As regards how it went from four weeks to eight weeks and then to 12 weeks, I do not know whether that is consistent with the other Dublin local authorities but there was increasing pressure, often from elected members, that there was no point giving people homeless HAP four weeks before the notice and, therefore, it stretched back to 12 weeks. That shows the use of homeless HAP as a preventative measure for those at risk of homelessness was an ad hoc development. There is nothing wrong with that; it is officials and elected members doing the right thing.
However, homeless HAP does not exist outside Dublin, even though some people call it that. Outside Dublin, there is a discretionary HAP increase of up to 30%. That is on a range of grounds. That discretionary increase also exists in Dublin, separate to homeless HAP. Currently, there is no official homeless HAP for persons at risk of homelessness outside Dublin but local authorities apply it in that way. Having a statutory definition of "at risk" would be valuable.
I totally agree with the Deputy. If one is going to judge a situation, one needs a standard to judge it against to determine who qualifies. It is important that we have a definition of "at risk" of homelessness. I do not know if this is it because I have not had time to see is there something in it. I would like to ask about a couple of the definitions. Do we have a definition for "inadequate housing"? Do we have a definition for "unfit housing"? Do we have a definition of what "extreme overcrowding" is? I worry that we are trying to define something by introducing other criteria. Are those terms defined in the Housing Act?
There is a statutory definition of "overcrowding" in the Housing Act 1966. During the previous Oireachtas, we had a public hearing that dealt with the issue in part. Mr. Brendan Kenny spoke to that when he was director of housing. He made the case that it was adequate but many of us believe it needs updating to take consideration of modern standards.
The Cathaoirleach also asked about adequacy. There are legal instruments where property can be deemed unfit for human habitation, for example, and the courts can use that to force remediation or evacuation. There are, separately, some minimum standards in the private rental sector but they are very minimal. There are also standards for the inspections of HAP properties after a HAP tenant moves in. The straight answer to the Cathaoirleach's question is that there is probably an argument for those three areas to be revisited. I am not sure whether it would be wise to include them in a homeless prevention Bill because they have a wider application than preventing homelessness. The key defining feature here relates to situations in which people know they have to be out of their current residence at a particular point. Take, for example, somebody who is in State care or somebody who is in prison. We have in-reach and aftercare programmes through our NGOs. However, there is an argument to say that if people know they have to be out of a property at a certain point, and if they have no reasonable accommodation to occupy, that is what this Bill is trying to capture.
Domestic violence is listed on the second page of the Bill. We could have a situation where the only option for a person is to remain in a property with a partner who is involved in domestic violence and coercive control. Such a person should clearly be seen as at risk of homelessness, and the Bill tries to capture that.
I would like to spend a little more time on defining it so it is not open to interpretation. What one person might consider "inadequate housing" might be considered by someone else in the same circumstances as very adequate to his or her needs.
Subsection (2) of the Deputy's Bill amends section 10 of the Housing Act 1988. The new subsection (12) includes the phrase "each local housing authority in Ireland may provide or secure ..." That still leaves it to the discretion of the housing authority if it wants to provide those services.
The problem is that I am not allowed to do anything other than that.
That is the case because something else might incur a cost. I am in a similar situation. I understand.
My clear view is that for the Bill to be effective, it should be a statutory obligation on the local authority but only the Government can do that. The Opposition or backbench TDs do not have the legal authority to do so. We are precluded from doing so.
We cannot introduce a Private Members' Bill that incurs a charge on the State.
Only the Government can do so.
I do not think that occurs in the Seanad.
There is a certain degree of wiggle room even in the Dáil. The issue is that if a Bill imposes a kind of incidental charge on the State, under certain circumstances the Ceann Comhairle and Bills Office would allow it through the Dáil. My understanding of Standing Orders in the Seanad is that there is a little more wiggle room. Something like this would include a clear and significant obligation. It may not be very expensive but would include a significant charge and, therefore, it would have to be a Government Bill or would require a Government amendment to the Bill.
That clears up the matter. The legislation would have to be modified if the Minister would take it on.
In any of the residential tenancies Bills or any of the legislation we have brought in during the past three years, did the Deputy ever seek to introduce these measures by way of amendments that were rejected?
The issue of prevention and preventative measures has come up quite a lot. The challenge is that the Residential Tenancies Acts, of which there have been many, would not be the appropriate place for these measures and we would, therefore, not be able to introduce amendments to a residential tenancies Bill. I am not aware of any primary legislation that has been introduced by the Government amending the Housing Acts. There have been comparable amendments that are focused on prevention but under the rules of the Oireachtas, we can only table amendments that are consequential to the Title and purpose of the Bill.
There has been nothing to hook any of these measures onto, as such.
I would have to look.
What about the affordable housing-----
No, that is a new stand-alone affordable housing Act.
Does that not amend the Housing Act in any way?
It relates only to affordable housing.
That legislation is completely new.
I was wondering if there were examples where these measures had been discussed as amendments but they have not.
These specific measures have not been discussed, from memory.
Those are my questions. I thank the Deputy.
May I ask another question? I was thinking about the definition of "homelessness". In practice, the definition of being at risk of homelessness is when one's current accommodation is no longer securely available. The definition in the Bill is that one receives a valid notice to quit that is going to expire within a set period of time and as a consequence of that, one is at risk of losing one's accommodation. That is not tying it to people who qualify for social housing. The idea is that anybody can be at risk of homelessness, regardless of their means. Surely that is not really the case because somebody who has significant means might receive a notice to quit but is not at risk of homelessness. To exaggerate to make the point, someone who has €1 million could go and buy a mansion.
Under the current legislation that governs the provision of homeless services, a person does not have to eligible for social housing to get access to emergency accommodation. One feature that started in 2014 but has accelerated more recently is the significant increase in the number of people who are presenting to local authorities as at risk of homelessness but are not on local authority housing waiting lists and would not be eligible. I understand that one homeless NGO is doing some research on the topic that it intends to publish next year. The indication already is that there has been a significant increase in the number of people accessing homeless services who are not eligible for social housing.
The legislation governing access to homeless services relates to situations where people are unable to access alternative accommodation through their own means. That is captured in the existing Acts. We also have tenant in situ cost rental, for example. For all the weaknesses in how it is operating, that is the State recognising a cohort of people should be considered at risk of homelessness, notwithstanding the fact they have an income over the threshold for social housing. I do not think we would need to do anything different from what is in the existing Housing Acts. What is actually happening in emergency services, as well as cost rental tenant in situ, shows there is such a cohort. The issue is at what point those people would be deemed able to provide for themselves. That would have to be a judgment call for the local authority in assessing need and what support services are there.
I have to disagree with the Deputy about the functioning of the tenant in situ scheme. It is working well from the perspective of social housing tenants. There was a bit of a culture change and a need for local authorities that have not been experiencing as much homelessness to adapt and to develop a sensitivity to realising they had this tool and to providing it. That has now largely been done. I am basing my view on my regular contact with councillors around the country.
While cost rental is completely new and unprecedented, which means there is a massive cultural and mental shift for everyone involved, it is working as well as anything. Buying or selling a house is a long, protracted and drawn-out process at the best of times. Cost rental is introducing a bit more certainty and it is certainly relieving a lot of stress for tenants because it provides them with a solution they never imagined would have been there. This is an important point to make because I do not think we should be talking it down. It took a lot to get it in place. It is very significant for the people who are able to avail of it. We need to build confidence in all of the stakeholders that are potentially there to exercise it as a tool so that we can maximise homelessness prevention.
I have read the Bill and I ask Deputy Ó Broin to give me three examples of things in the Bill that are not already provided for.
To respond to Senator Fitzpatrick's point, I am a strong supporter of both tenant in situ schemes. I was arguing for the reopening of the social rental scheme immediately after it was closed by Eoghan Murphy. It is not a question of talking it down. It is the very opposite, in fact. We should be talking about it as much as possible. We also need to listen to tenants and landlords who are raising very legitimate observations and concerns about its operation. For example, Dublin City County Council and South Dublin County Council are probably the two leading local authorities in terms of cost-rental tenant in situ. Fingal County Council is doing okay and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is doing quite poorly, in my view. I presume it will be the first quarter of next year when the Minister publishes the county-by-county breakdown of what we assume, on the basis of the figures published yesterday, will be at least 1,300 purchases. We will then be able to compare the county-by-county targets versus delivery and we will get a sense of it. I hear not only from my colleagues but also from individuals who contact my office from other local authorities that it is not being operated with the same energy or flexibility in other local authorities as, for example, we experience in our own local authorities.
I have to disagree on cost-rental tenant in situ. There are number of considerable hurdles we hear about from AHBs, landlords and tenants. The point is not to talk it down. The point is to listen to people who are saying there are problems and let us fix them. The one thing we absolutely agree on is that these are very good mechanisms to prevent people from becoming homeless and, therefore, it is not to politicise the point but just make sure it works as effectively as possible.
AHBs have no role in cost-rental tenant in situ.
They do.
It is the Housing Agency.
The way the scheme has been set up is that the Housing Agency processes it and, so far, is the initial purchaser. Under the terms of the scheme, the Housing Agency is not meant to retain the property. It is meant to sell it on to an AHB. The original design was that it facilitates its purchase.
I know of three people paying rent to the Housing Agency, not to an AHB.
No, but the way the scheme has been designed is that the Housing Agency is to process it. The Housing Agency buys and then sells on to an AHB. This is the way in which the scheme was set up. The problem is the Housing Agency is finding it difficult to get AHBs to buy them. The Housing Agency, which does not do, and has never done, long-term tenancy management in sustainment, could end up holding on to these properties for far longer than the scheme intends. This is not a criticism of the scheme. It is an observation on how it is operating. There is a real reluctance among some AHBs to consider purchasing the properties.
To answer the principal question, the key measure the Bill provides for is that, unlike the current situation, all local authorities would have a requirement at a point in time to meet and put in place a homeless prevention plan for people at risk of homelessness.
But this happens.
If Senator Cummins had been here at the start-----
I apologise for being late.
The point I made at the start is that, in some local authorities where we have good officials, they do this.
Right.
In other local authorities it does not happen at all, or in some local authorities some officials do it and some do not.
Surely Deputy Ó Broin is not suggesting that it requires legislation-----
Yes.
-----if local authorities are already doing it?
In fact, the very point of the legislation is to ensure the good practice of those local authorities who are doing it, either on a part or regular basis, becomes a legal requirement and mainstreams across all. It should happen as a matter of course. Otherwise what happens is that it is likely left to a good housing manager, a good homeless service manager or just a good housing official on the desk. There should be a requirement to do it.
Deputy Ó Broin well knows that everything relies on this with regard to housing. Everything relies on a good housing official or a good worker who is driving a scheme. We have provided varieties of schemes in a host of areas that have statutory underpinning. Some local authorities are performing with them and some not, regardless of the statutory underpinning. What does Deputy Ó Broin have to say to this?
Again, it is the opposite. If we take, for example, tenant in situ, when it was reopened in April 2022, it was left to each local authority. In fact, if we look at the circular provided at the time, there was no guidance and certainly no statutory underpinning. As a consequence, from April 2021 through to March or April 2022, there was very little tenant in situ and most local authorities outside of Dublin were not interested in it. This shows that the best way to get our local authorities to do something, if we decide it is a priority and should be done, is to make it a statutory obligation.
I will put the counterargument and say we have had statutory underpinning for more than 12 or 18 months with affordable housing. Some local authorities are doing the business and others are not doing the business at all. This is with regard to statutory underpinning for affordable housing. It goes back to the original point made by Deputy Ó Broin that it still relies on the performance, or not, of the local authority.
There is no statutory obligation on a local authority to provide social housing, affordable housing or homeless services. In fact, if we look at the legislation underpinning all of these things, it states that local authorities "may" provide these things, and generally they provide them in conjunction with the Department. There is nothing in law that compels a local authority to provide social or affordable housing.
It is one of its primary functions.
It is, and in fact this is an area in which I would like to see the laws strengthened elsewhere. Right now today, there is nothing to compel a local authority, including by homeless services, as the legislation in the 1988 Act uses the word "may" and not "shall". The only requirement for a local authority is to provide a housing action plan. If we take Traveller accommodation as a good case in point, there is no legal requirement on local authorities to actually provide Traveller accommodation. They have a statutory obligation to produce a Traveller accommodation plan, in the same way as they must have a housing action plan, but the actual delivery of units is not driven statutorily. It is driven through the dialogue and the provision of funding between the Department and the local authority.
My view is that what is being proposed here is unnecessary.
We are dealing with the legislation that is in front of us at present. I thank Deputy Ó Broin for bringing it to the committee.
At the beginning of the meeting we discussed the format, which is that the sponsor of a Bill will present to the committee. There will be further Stages after this and this in itself is not the entirety of committee scrutiny. It is up to the committee, which we can decide at our next meeting in January, the next step that we will take with these Bills and the other Private Members' Bills on the list.
Deputy Ó Broin said that only 5% of the homeless budget is spent on homelessness prevention.
Yes.
This statement ignores the fact that the housing capital budget includes all of the tenant in situ and social housing capital spend. A total of 5% of the homeless emergency accommodation budget is spent on prevention because that budget is for the provision of emergency accommodation. The budgetary spend on preventative measures is captured in the housing capital budget.
May I reply very briefly?
This is not the Estimates.
I know but it is an important point.
If it is a point of order, perhaps Deputy Ó Broin can clarify it.
Senator Fitzpatrick makes an important point and I will not dispute the substance of it, which is that there is a capital budget and a portion of the homes delivered with it, whether bought or delivered, will be for people who are in emergency accommodation. This is not in dispute.
The statement I made is factually correct. There is a homeless services budget. It is not a budget for emergency accommodation. It covers all homeless services. Professor Eoin O'Sullivan, one of the country's leading experts in homeless services, for example, and many of the homeless NGOs, constantly remind us that only 5% of the homeless services budget goes on prevention. I am not criticising the amount of money we spend on emergency accommodation. I would like to see it fall and I would like to see less homelessness. Of that homeless services budget, however, the fact is 5% or less goes on homeless prevention. That does not in any way dispute the point that Senator Fitzpatrick is making that a portion of the capital budget goes to people who are in emergency accommodation.
Homeless service providers and academics on the homeless issue, including people who have presented to this committee, have called for Government to look at ways of increasing the percentage of the homeless services budget that goes towards prevention because too much of it is going on emergency. That is, in part, because of the scale of emergency - an emergency that is getting worse by the month. It is a valid point to make but it does not dispute Senator Fitzpatrick's point, which is a portion of the capital budget goes to people who are in emergency accommodation.
It is playing with numbers. It is a presentational matter but it is an important statement of fact that it is not only 5% of €300 million, which is a very large number dedicated to homeless services. It would be incorrect for this committee to allow an impression to be created that 5% of that €300 million of a homeless services budget is all that is being spent on homeless prevention because that is untrue. There is a very significant proportion of the housing capital budget allocated to preventing homelessness through the significant increase in the provision of social housing through direct build, acquisition and tenant in situ. That is the point.
I thank the members and thank Deputy Ó Broin.
I will move on now fo Deputy Cian O'Callaghan's Bill, which is an amendment to the Residential Tenancies Act. I call Deputy Cian O'Callaghan to introduce and go through his Bill.
I thank the Chair. The Bill is about strengthening the Tyrrelstown amendment. The Tyrrelstown amendment, as I am sure most committee members will be aware, was introduced to ensure that where ten or more rental homes are being sold together, renters would not be evicted and would be able to stay in their homes as long as they are paying their rent and comply with all the other normal conditions of renting. It does not give a general protection against eviction. It is if they are compliant with the terms of their tenancy, paying their rent - all those normal conditions - and are not involved in anti-social behaviour, etc.
The issue that the Bill is trying to address is that there has been a number of instances where the Tyrrelstown amendment has proved to be ineffective, and in a way that was not intended by legislators initially when it was brought in.
We have seen a number of cases where the get-out clause from the Tyrrelstown amendment has been utilised and, even though the renters in those situations have taken cases to the RTB and the RTB has found in favour of the renters, the entire process around this, and the stress around it as the eviction notices had originally been served, has effectively resulted in the number of households left within that apartment block or, if that is the case, the number of houses together falling beneath the threshold of ten and then fresh eviction notices being issued. As a result, the safety-in-numbers protection against eviction, because the eviction notices have been issued and because of the process around that protection, no longer applies to them as the numbers have been whittled down.
I acknowledge the support of the Government in terms of letting this Bill get through to Committee Stage.
As the Cathaoirleach was saying, the Tyrrelstown amendment was one of the fundamental changes in the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016. In that Act, the amendment was meant to ensure that where the sale of ten or more homes was happening, existing tenants would be able to stay in place. That is quite a different situation from the one of individual landlords, for example, small landlords who may own one or two properties or may be renting out their principal private residents if they go abroad for work or for study or any such issues.
The issue in the get-out clause or the exception is that it allows for the market value of the property when sold with the tenants in situ. If it is below 20% and if the application of the rule - the Tyrrelstown amendment - would be unduly onerous or cause hardship to the landlord, he or she can invoke this clause.
During the Second Stage debate on this, the Minister brought some data on this and said, based on a sample from the RTB, that it was aware of that there were four uses of this clause. Those four uses resulted in four appeals by renters to the RTB and in those four instances, the rulings made by the RTB were in favour of the renters. Certainly, from the sample data made available by the RTB to the Minister, it shows that where this clause has been used, the use of the clause has not been upheld. While that has happened, the resulting use of the clause has undermined the protection in the Tyrrelstown amendment because it has ultimately led to the number of households in the apartment block or cluster of homes falling beneath the threshold of ten and the protection not being in place.
That is what the Bill is about. It is quite a short Bill, as members can see. In effect, it is an amendment to the Tyrrelstown amendment. I would be delighted to take questions and hear comments.
I thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan. I do not have the Residential Tenancies Act in front of me here. Essentially, am I correct that Deputy Cian O'Callaghan's Bill is to remove that (a), (b) and (c) clause?
The principal Act in it is the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 and it would be amended so that, in section 35A, subsection (3) would be deleted. That is technically what the Bill does.
Subsection (3) comprises (a), (b) and (c) in the explanatory memorandum. Does subsection (3) relate to the reasons for exemption from the Tyrrelstown amendment?
Yes, the reasons for exemption.
Are there any other exemptions from the Tyrrelstown amendment?
No. That is the exemption.
I thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan. Have any of the members got any questions on it?
Could Deputy O'Callaghan go back over what he said about four cases? Can the Deputy give us a bit more information on that?
That is the information I have, from Second Stage and from the Minister. The Minister obtained it from the RTB. The Minister was keen to stress that this was a sample. This is what the RTB was able to provide to the Minister and the Department. They are not saying these are the definitive figures but from what they were able to find, they were able to find four uses of the clause or exemption. In all four of those instances, the renters brought appeals to the RTB. In all four cases, the RTB found in favour of the renters, that is, that the use of the clause, I suppose, was not invalid in that the legislation allowed the landlord or the owner to use the clause but the use of the clause was not upheld in those four cases. I guess it was valid for them to use it all right - they were within their rights to use it - but it was not upheld that the grounds for evictions and the notices that were issued were ultimately valid. That was the finding.
I cannot see how one would, and it would be difficult to, prove those three conditions. One would have to go through the sales process. I am trying to think this one through. If a landlord is saying he or she wants to evict more than ten tenancies at one time and is prevented from doing so because of the Tyrrelstown amendment, and the landlord wants to pursue it, the landlord has to claim one of these. It would be quite hard to prove and demonstrate that the selling price will be affected by more than 20%. That is a quantifiable measure. The only way one could prove it is by putting it out on the market, but one would have to be able to put it out on the market with vacant possession and occupied. Is it not impossible to prove?
Yes, there are difficulties around the way it was constructed. There are differences concerning undue hardship as well. I think we all are aware of individual landlords who are reliant on one particular property for their day-to-day income or pension. Proving undue hardship when it involves the sale of ten or more units, however, is going to be much more difficult. I can see the intention of the legislators in this regard back in 2016.
The other point I made on Second Stage was on what would happen if this exemption were gone. In terms of market prices and expectations around values and sales, in cases where people buy or assemble a portfolio of ten homes or more, the expectation normally would be that they would be sold with the tenants in situ. This situation then gets baked into the calculations and the market. It means someone is not then at a disadvantage compared with someone exercising this clause, if it no longer exists, to achieve vacant possession. In fact, there is potentially an unfairness here as well. If someone did manage to exercise this clause and was able to achieve a better sales price, then how would that be fair on those other landlords?
Of course, there is a knock-on impact for the tenants and renters as well, which is obviously where I was coming from. If we were to think about this context from the perspective of landlords or investors, though, there is an exception rule that is very hard for them to use or get access to. This potentially puts some landlords and investors at a disadvantage compared with others. There is a question of fairness there and about creating expectations of what will be the realisable value for multiple properties. On this basis, therefore, I think there is a good case to be made to remove this provision, as well as because of the impacts on renters, homelessness and the other issues related to the first Bill we are talking about.
I suspect they were happy to allow this legislation to go to Second Stage because were it removed, there would be a cleaning up and probably strengthening of the legislation. It kind of creates a question, does it not?
It does.
It creates an uncertainty that can potentially be exploited and not necessarily to great advantage. It can, however, create a lot of upset and uncertainty for tenants in the meantime.
I thank Senator Fitzpatrick.
I am fully supportive of the proposition. When the rent pressure zone legislation was introduced in the dying days, if not hours, of the December 2016 Oireachtas term, this was one of the really controversial parts of the Bill. Originally, in fact, I do not think the Government intended to put this provision in at all. There was some pressure. At that time, there was not just a fear but a reality where, in certain cases, tenants in large numbers were being evicted, only to be then replaced by other tenants, with a higher rent being charged, or whatever. There was always a concern that the exemptions Deputy O'Callaghan is seeking to remove had the potential for abuse.
As he said, there have been several cases where there has been clear evidence of this having happened and forcing tenants who are struggling with eviction notices and perhaps trying to find somewhere else to have to go to the Residential Tenancies Board. We know this process can take four months. In the case of Tathony House, it is ongoing because in the first instance, the landlord lost the case but then appealed it to the tribunal. He has since withdrawn that appeal and initiated another round of eviction notices. During this lengthy time, however, some tenants, under stress, got so fed up that they have now found alternative arrangements. If I understand correctly, in terms of this amendment, that would no longer apply. Landlords can do that; they have the ability to wear the tenants down.
These exemptions should never have been there. They were never adequately justified and removing them is eminently sensible. I believe we have all stated on the record on various Stages that we would like to see the private rental sector have much longer and more secure tenancies, especially in the case of multi-unit developments, where they are not single-property landlords but are large, professional institutional landlords. If they want to sell, they can do so, but in a block with tenants in situ. There should not be exemptions.
I thank Deputy Ó Broin. As I am not overly familiar with this Tyrrelstown amendment, I have a couple of questions on it. The Deputies are obviously much more experienced in respect of this issue. At the point at which the notice to quit, the notice of termination, is served, the tenant then goes to the RTB with it but who works out that ten or more people are being evicted at the same time? How is that assessment done? These notices to quit come in as individual notices of termination. Is it up to the RTB to say these are all at the same address, within a short space of time, so the Tyrrelstown amendment kicks in? Is it then up to the RTB to adjudicate and to say these notices of termination are invalid because, in its opinion, the building concerned would be worth 20% less? Who is making the adjudication in respect of the Tyrrelstown amendment?
From my knowledge of this, in terms of compliance with the amendment, the onus is on the landlord. Before the Tyrrelstown amendment, if a landlord was selling ten, 20 or 30 homes or a full apartment block, it was legal for that landlord to issue eviction notices on the basis of sale, the same as an individual or small landlord. The onus would be on landlords to ensure they are compliant in this context. If a landlord were to just turn around and issue 20 eviction notices, because he or she owned an apartment block with 20 households, that would be a clear breach of the Tyrrelstown amendment. Those eviction notices would then be invalid, and people could, on that basis, go to the RTB and say those eviction notices were invalid and that they were protected by the Tyrrelstown amendment.
In terms of the determination in respect of the exemption, I am trying to eliminate from the Tyrrelstown amendment the onus being entirely on the renters to appeal. The landlord is able to exercise that exemption and issue the eviction notices; that is what landlords do. The onus is then entirely on the residents to be aware of the legislation and to know they can appeal to the RTB and go through all that process, which in itself is very difficult and stressful for renters. People can be waiting for months for a determination to be made by the RTB. This whole process is obviously very stressful. Typically, during the process, people will also try to find alternative accommodation. This wearing down process then often means the numbers of homes involved goes below ten and the protection in this regard is no longer there. It is, however, the RTB that adjudicates on this scenario in its entirety.
It kind of requires the tenants to almost work collectively together and to tell each other they have got notices to quit at various times. Do those notices have to be all issued within a certain time?
I think it is six months.
I would have to look at it.
In this situation, regarding Tyrrelstown, the prohibition on evicting ten people or more would still remain in one block. Deputy O'Callaghan is seeking to do away with the exemptions for having to comply with this amendment.
Okay. I understand. Again, this is the RTB-----
Just to clarify, for most renters in this situation, nothing changes. They will still have the protection of the Tyrrelstown amendment. In the small number of cases where, in my view, attempts are made to try to circumvent this amendment, that possibility would be removed.
I know the Deputy mentioned four cases the Minister mentioned on Second Stage but has there been a successful use of these exemptions?
Not that the Minister-----
Yes, from memory, there was a quite a large development, which I am pretty sure was in Dublin 8 - I will dig out the detail - where these exemptions could be used to get vacant possession on eviction.
Does the Deputy know which aspect was invoked? Was it undue hardship or-----
Let me check and I will circulate it.
Yes.
I am pretty sure of this. I am aware of one instance. I am not saying there has been more than one.
The suggestion then is that, because it might take a long time to adjudicate on the price or whether it was undue hardship on the landlord, etc., the tenants end up living with the resulting stress for as long as this situation continues and, in a way, this can almost encourage people to say they will get out because they cannot be living with that kind of situation.
Yes. That has certainly happened in a number of instances, Tathony House being one such example. I think it has happened out in St. Helen's Court, Dún Laoghaire, as well.
Therefore, by utilising this clause without necessarily being able to prove it in the end, for someone trying to get vacant possession, it can still have that effect. It kind of undermines the amendment, although the amendment might have caused a bit of a delay in the whole process.
Does anybody know why the figure of ten was settled on? I am trying to think of an example. If someone had 18 units, he or she could serve notice to quit on nine people and six months later, separately, on more people. I refer to Tyrrelstown. There is the arbitrary figure of ten. Does anybody know where that arose from?
I think it was arbitrary. It was to specifically exclude small- and medium-sized landlords from this. My view is that it would not have passed if they had been included. There would not have been that cross-party support for it, so-----
I am just thinking that if we take one of those big three-storey Georgian blocks or something like that, somebody might want to sell that as a residence or something at some point. Is ten the number in that regard? I do not know.
Finally, this is the Residential Tenancies Act. In all the times we have amended that Act, has the Deputy sought to introduce this as an amendment or has it ever been discussed on Committee Stage? Deputy Ó Broin-----
Does this not postdate any of those amendments that came in?
I know this PMB is relatively newly introduced, but back in 2020, 2021, 2022, when we amended the RTA, did anybody introduce this? I am wondering if a Minister has rejected or commented on this amendment already at any stage.
I could not tell you with 100% certainty. Sorry. It is just that we have dealt with thousands of amendments of different-----
Yes, but you did not introduce this as an amendment to any RTA.
Not that I can recall. I could not tell you definitely that I have not. I would have to look back. The impetus for me to draft this Bill came when I saw what was happening in Tathony House, having seen what had happened in St. Helen's Court. The impetus for me to do this came relatively recently, within this year.
I think it would be helpful if you were to look back. Deputy Ó Broin, I do not know if you are aware of anybody having introduced such an amendment. I do not recall. I certainly have not done so anyway. We amended that Act a couple of times during the Covid pandemic, did we not?
We did, absolutely.
I think it would be helpful to the committee to know if there has been a ministerial response to this.
I do not know if any amendment has been introduced to give effect to this. With all the RTA amendment Bills that had to do with either notice periods or changes to the rent pressure zones, when any of us attempted to introduce amendments to other parts of the Residential Tenancies Act, those amendments were ruled out of order. If I understand correctly, not only does the amendment have to be relevant to the Act the Government is amending; it has to be relevant to the subject matter of the Bill. For example, if the Government's Bill and its Title explicitly makes amendments to the rent pressure zone element, one is allowed to table amendments only to the rent pressure zone elements of the Bill. Funnily, the only reason I know that is that I fought tooth and nail on a number of RTA Bills where I wanted to amend other aspects of the Residential Tenancies Act and I was precluded from doing so by the Ceann Comhairle. That is a decision of the Ceann Comhairle; it has nothing to do with the Government. It is independent.
That is interesting because when we were doing the road traffic miscellaneous provisions Bill, I think I sought to introduce an amendment to the Road Traffic Act that was not covered and I do not think it was ruled out-----
That was a miscellaneous provisions Bill, though. Is that the reason?
Miscellaneous Bills are different.
So you can put anything into a-----
The wonderful thing about a miscellaneous provisions Bill is that if it is, say, the Residential Tenancies Act (amendment) Bill, everything is on the table. However, my Bill, for example, relates to the deferment of tenancy dates. That relates to a very specific bit of the Act. I was very surprised the first time one of my amendments was ruled out of order because my experience had been with miscellaneous provisions Bills, but-----
That is why we are not getting miscellaneous Bills.
We can arrange that.
We would be coming forward with all these things.
Thank you, Deputy O'Callaghan. Are there any further questions on that? No. I will take my slot now.
My Bill is called the Dereliction and Building Regeneration Bill. It is partly put together from a Fianna Fáil Private Members' Bill. I think somebody else sought to reintroduce that Fianna Fáil Private Members' Bill at one point.
We have no problem-----
One of our Green Party researchers, Kate Ruddock, is here this afternoon. We have gone through the history of PMBs around this subject matter of dereliction, vacancy and regeneration and what we found was that, across all parties in the House, there was a desire to do something about it. As realists, however, we all know that whereas a Member can write a PMB and it is an absolute privilege to be able to write legislation and introduce it into the Oireachtas - I find it to be an absolute privilege anyway and a massive learning curve - PMBs do not go all the way, generally. This Bill was accepted on Second Stage; hence we are here. Then on Second Stage, there was really good cross-party support for it. I think you were there for the debate, Deputy Ó Broin. Deputy Bacik from Labour was there. I think you were there as well, Deputy O'Callaghan. What I have seen so far is good support for it.
There are two parts to it, in general. It seeks to update the Derelict Sites Act. That Act is quite outdated in a number of ways. The other part of it is to allow for an expedited process as to where applicants get their planning consent and the different certifications that are required - fire certificate, disability certificate and, if necessary, architectural conservation certificate - in an expedited manner.
I got quite a bit of assistance on this from some very experienced architects: Mel Reynolds, who presented to the committee on our urban regeneration series; Eoin O'Cofaigh, who knows the regulations inside out, having chatted to him; and Orla Hegarty, who also contributed to it and assisted us with it.
I will briefly go through the Bill and the parts of the Derelict Sites Act that we are trying to amend. I find the Derelict Sites Act is a little limited in its description of what a derelict building is. We seek to amend that by bringing in changes such as, say, if the doors and windows are closed up on the property. What we often see, which I see in my town, is a building that has been derelict for years but that may or may not be on the derelict sites register. It is an eyesore, and our Tidy Towns group comes along and paints nice doors and windows on it and suddenly it does not meet that definition of visually detracting from the area, so it will not go on the derelict sites register. It brings nothing of benefit to the area. We seek to amend the Derelict Sites Act to say that if a property is boarded up, if it is uninhabitable, if it needs works, we put it on the derelict sites register.
We also seek to introduce a provision whereby if a property has been disconnected from electricity or water services for a period of two years or more, we define that as derelict because it is a building that will fall into decay. I do not know if a building not having electricity or water would be enough in itself to go on a derelict sites register, but we need to consider that if there is no heat or water and nobody in the building, that building is decaying from the inside. It may not be decaying as obviously from the outside.
We seek to update the register of derelict sites as well such that all local authorities would have to have an online derelict sites register. They do not all currently have one. We also suggest that in the entries on the derelict sites register we would include information that would assist somebody because it might be a good first port of call for somebody who is interested in acquiring, refurbishing and doing up a building to go to the derelict sites list and see what is out there. It may indicate that somebody wishes to sell; it may indicate that somebody is so loaded they do not want to sell. It is, however, a good starting point. We seek to include on that derelict sites register information about moneys owed, the outstanding derelict sites levy, the planning history of that site, the current zoning of it and any other relevant information to assist people in their search. To identify people, we try to introduce more modern methods such as online advertising and the putting up of a site notice. If the owner cannot be found after a certain period, the property goes on the derelict sites register.
Under section 6 we also seek the power to acquire a derelict site so that when a building has been on the derelict sites register for more than two years, the Minister would be informed and could commence steps to compulsorily purchase the site. This gives greater powers to the Minister and a greater level of awareness within the Department. The Department has set out a number of targets for CPOs, Croí Cónaithe, etc., so we think this would assist with that.
We changed the prescribed area as well so where derelict sites would apply would be within settlement boundaries. We are not targeting the old run-down farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. It does not come in scope but it would be within the defined settlement boundary that is generally seen in a local area plan or county development plan. Will we deal with that section first? Does anybody have any questions on that or is everybody satisfied with that? Okay, we must have written that pretty well. Well done to Kate Ruddock.
Part 3 is about the regeneration of buildings. I remember that since the 1990s they were talking about living over the shop in Capel Street, for example. Every so often it comes to the fore that we need to regenerate, we need to get those second stories into use and we need to bring residential use back into our towns and villages. There seems to be this circular conversation that happens every couple of years. There is now a massive focus back on our town centres. We know that because of climate emissions and transport challenges there is a focus on putting accommodation back into towns. There is a focus on embodied carbon. If we do not make better reuse of existing building stock and try to just build conventionally with concrete, we will overshoot our carbon targets by a huge amount. We are all focused again on it. If we speak to practitioners, architects, builders, developers and people who have a dream about bringing back one of these town centre buildings, they say they run into a lot of difficulty from the outset. It can be a very onerous and expensive process to get all of the permissions and certifications required to build. What we are trying to introduce here is three further types of exempt development, which we call (m), (n) and (o). That is from section 4 of the planning Act where it runs from (a) to (l) currently. I will not bother reading that. It is in the Bill but it is about making changes, putting in doors and windows, etc. A lot of this will be planning exempt because we brought in planning exemptions. In order to be able to consolidate that process, where one can apply for a fire certificate, disability certificate and other certificates one might need, we have tried to establish what is called Town Centres First. We used a Town Centres First office because it is based on the Town Centres First policy introduced by the Government. One should be able to go in, present one's documentation, present all the information required and have a very quick turnaround so one does not have to go through the normal process of going for the fire certificate, which one might get but then one might fail on the disability certificate.
It is important to stress there is no reduction in any building regulations or building standards in any of this. Standards still have to be met but there is a realisation that in certain types of these buildings - for example, bringing the second or third stories of these buildings back into use - we will not be able to fit a lift in those buildings. It would make the project completely unviable. I spoke to some people in the disability sector and asked them about this and they said it sounds reasonable and practical. If we were doing a new build on an infill site, we would obviously have to fully comply with that. That is part and parcel of these buildings that we will not and that has to be accepted. That covers it in general. Does anybody have any questions on it?
I have no questions but I have a comment and an observation. The Chair may want to respond to the observation. In the second Part of the Bill, the one-stop shop - as it has been referred to until this point - is such an eminently sensible idea. I cannot count the number of times it has been proposed at an Oireachtas housing committee. If I am not wrong, it was Deputy Barry Cowen who first introduced the earlier legislation.
That is correct.
I understand Deirdre Ní Fhloinn, a former colleague of the Chair's, and Orla Hegarty did a lot of the groundwork for Deputy Cowen on that. Along with Eoin Ó Coffaigh and Mel Reynolds, they had also been making this case over and over on the issue of vacancy and dereliction during the previous Oireachtas. There is a certain frustration which I suspect is shared by the Chair that some of the easiest things to do in this area are the things that are not being done.
I will explain the reason I introduced Deputy Cowen's Bill, because once a Bill is passed by the Dáil on Second Stage, it is kind of the property of the Dáil so any Member can recommit it. Far too often some parties propose legislation while they are in opposition and when they get into government, they are very quick to walk away from that. It is a very good thing that the Chair has taken that Bill and has very clearly improved it, so congratulations to him and his team. This is legislation I would genuinely like us to expedite. If there are technical deficiencies in the Bill that Department officials highlight it can introduce a Bill or can take this Bill, amend it and expedite it through. This has been done on a number of occasions with the USI Bills and others, so I really do not mind who does it.
With respect to the first Part of the Bill, as they are new sections they are the additions the Chair is bringing to the table.
The derelict sites.
Yes, and they are very welcome. I had not thought of it until I read the Bill,but I like the idea of notification of an appropriate authority to give them an instigation to compulsorily purchase. Whether or not the Minister is the most appropriate, or the Minister and the local authority, ultimately the Minister does not CPO, it is the local authority. It may well be of course that the Minister could be changed to the local authority and the local authority would not act on the notification. It might be worthwhile that some consideration is given to whether it should be only the Minister, or the Minister and the local authority and whether there is some obligation on them to act. I do not think it is already there.
No, it is the local authority which notifies itself.
They could absolutely because there are different sections of a local authority.
Okay. Yes, I have got you.
Already there would be a situation where a housing department, for example, might notify the planning department or vice versa. It is not a criticism because I like the principle of it. It is just the most effective way of doing that in terms of who and what obligation is then on them to act. Clearly that is what we want.
What we are trying to achieve here is that we want every local authority to have an online derelict sites register. I can see absolutely no reason in this day and age that they would not have that online register. It is absolutely ridiculous as far as I am concerned. Part of that online register would include the outstanding levies and how long this building has been on the register. When a building has been on the derelict sites register for more than two years, it means that the person has not taken action. Currently, action is required within a month but we extended the timeframe to six months because what we do not want is a simple slap of paint and a boarded up window that is done in a month - job done and it is off the register. That is not what we want. We recognise there can be significant works required so there is six months.
After the property has been on the register for more than two years, under section 6 we have that where a property has been on the register for a period of two years, the local authority must notify the Minister. Therefore the Minister and the Department, or the officials, have a rolling register of how many derelict sites are out there. The Deputy mentioned earlier about not being able to introduce a cost to the Exchequer. When I originally drafted this Bill, it was to introduce a derelict sites tax because a tax would be a much more effective measure, as I have said before. It is very easy to ignore a local authority envelope falling through the door but it is not so easy to ignore a Revenue envelope falling through the door. As the levies are low and it does not mean levies are not being levied on those buildings; it is just that somebody is not paying them and they can accumulate for ten or 20 years. It does absolutely nothing to stimulate the use of that building so originally I wanted this to be a tax. Does the Deputy think two years is too short a period for the Minister to be notified? The Minister would then have an idea of how much dereliction is in each county and could instruct the local authorities to CPO those sites.
My point is slightly different. People often think a local authority is a single entity but, of course, it is not. It is different departments, many with different functions. Invariably, whether it is the land management development or planning function of the local authority, the individuals responsible for the register sit on one side of the building and on the other side there are the director of housing and housing services, which are responsible for provision of housing and compulsory purchase of housing primarily for social housing. Just because the left hand has the information, that does not mean the right hand does. We took a decision some years ago in my constituency that every time we came across a derelict property, we would write to the director of housing to ask if he knew the property was derelict and if he would consider acquiring it. Some of those properties were on the register, yet the director of housing did not know that. I am not arguing against the ministerial function but it would also be nice if there was a responsibility on the function of the local authority that compiles and holds the derelict sites register to cross-inform. One may find that the housing section in a local authority would proceed to CPO, for example. I know that sounds stupid because it is the one organisation and you ask why they do not but that is not how stuff happens in practice.
It is a good point.
I have also marked that as an issue. I support the thrust of the Bill; it is a great piece of work but on section 6, I do not see the merit in informing the Minister because he or she does not acquire properties. It could be strengthened by saying that where the site is admitted to the register, the local authority "shall" commence steps so the local authority is compelled to commence steps to acquire the property. If the Minister wants to know what is going on in a local authority, he gets reports from the local authorities. Reporting to the Minister on how many sites there are or that a site has been on the derelict sites register for two years will not trigger any action from him or her, however good he or she is. In my experience, local authorities act independently in that space. I like the amendments, which are good; having more information would be good. The Dublin City Council list is a link to an Excel spreadsheet with the addresses. I do not think it even puts the date on which the properties were added to the derelict sites register. In parallel, it operates a vacant sites register and it has a third list, a dangerous buildings list, all of which I am sure creates gainful employment for some administrator some place but are doing sweet FA to tackle dereliction and vacancy in Dublin city. When I inquired about significant sites in the city that are clearly derelict and underutilised, Dublin City Council came back with a response that the property was on the derelict sites register but had to be taken off because the owner put in a planning application, which was being pursued, or that planning permission was granted and the owner intended to commence work but that was now subject to a judicial review. There is an issue around making local authorities do something. If this Bill was strengthened to say the local authority "shall" commence the process of acquiring compulsorily the property, it would go a long way to focusing minds and generating action.
I have a small grammatical question on Part 2. I do not know if this is intentional but it states in the definition in Part 2 that it is "... any site in an urban area". Is that deliberately restricted to urban areas?
I think the Derelict Sites Act 1990 specifies what is classified as urban areas. We are saying this will be within town and settlement boundaries. I think the Derelict Sites Act 1990 has a big list of defined urban areas.
I understand the focus on having "an" office within the local authorities but now that there are at least vacant housing officers in each local authority, would they not be better positioned to help expedite the process? The town centre first people, from my experience, are good and they work to good values and aspirations but it is a much broader concept type of work, whereas vacant housing officers deal with the specific application of turning a vacant or derelict property into a habitable one. Expanding and resourcing that role, which in practice works, would be beneficial in ramping up and accelerating the regeneration and reuse of vacant and derelict properties.
It is a good point. I imagine the vacant homes officers will have a role in the identification and collation of these derelict site lists and an inspection role. It is not that the role for permissions or consents will go to the town centre first officers - we are calling it a town centre first application to indicate that it is not a normal section 34. Applicants can go the normal building control and regulations route if they want to or they can opt for this expedited one, which is a called town centre first application. It is not to be put under the town centre first office.
On the section 6 question that local authority "shall" commence steps, I would be concerned that if local authorities are compelled to acquire all these derelict sites, they may just sit as derelict sites now owned by the local authority. We would have to give some leeway to local authorities to say there is a requirement for that building, there is a need, they can use that building or they can readily turn that building around within an appropriate period. I do know about having to compel the local authority to do it.
What if we said something like they "shall commence the process of acquiring compulsorily" and bring forward a business case for its renovation and regeneration or allow the original owner to step in and do the same, with a given commitment within a timeframe. Compelling action is what we need.
That is part of the reason to have the Minister informed that a site has been put on the register or it has been sitting there for two years. It is to give eyes to him or her on how efficiently the changes to the CPO process are working. I think there was a €150 million grant recently for local authorities as seed capital to start compulsory purchase ordering buildings. It will not go to the Minister, it will go to somebody in the Department to keep a tracker on these matters. We discussed in the Planning and Development Bill 2023 the issue of enforcement procedures in planning taking too long. It is important that the Department should be aware of that. We all know enforcement is weak in local authorities. It can indicate a systemic issue that perhaps the Department should be aware of, rather than each local authority reporting it in. It is not centrally managing, it is an overview and oversight of how the 31 local authorities operate. It is no harm to see, for example, that Limerick and Louth are doing quite well and Waterford is stepping up, having those comparisons; I think there are only three sites on the register in County Wicklow. I am open to that and those kinds of changes. That is the opportunity we have because, as I said at the outset, nearly every party has introduced something like this. We are all united. I have no objection to taking any changes or amendments to make this better.
This is an excellent Bill. Great work has been done on it. It is good that it covers the different aspects. I would love to see this Bill progressed and done in this Oireachtas term, if we can, with us working together to get it through the system or progress it as far as we possibly can. On section 6, if we do a report - which we should soon - we could then make our recommendations on the section.
In terms of keeping track on how different local authorities are performing on dereliction and stuff, NOAC, for example, could be doing that role and could be doing the data. The key thing is how to get the local authority doing something here and applying CPOs. About 20 years ago, long before I was an elected representative, together with another group of people we got the list of all the buildings on the derelict sites register in Dublin City Council. The practice in Dublin City Council was quite different from now. There was obviously a different culture then.
We visited about 20 different buildings in Senator Fitzpatrick's area. Obviously, the list we had got from Dublin City Council was a bit out of date. When turning up at these various sites, it was fascinating to find that the city council had imposed CPOs on a number of them. Some of them had been renovated and turned into housing. Because the city council was deadly serious about imposing CPOs, it had the effect of some of the owners, who had been hands-off and forgotten about their buildings or whatever, becoming quite activated and coming back on board. There was a very hands-on effective approach at the time. The Bill is looking around the settlements, so compelling action here would be in areas where there is housing need. That is an area we could look at.
I agree with the online register provisions of the Bill.
I have one question on the proposed section 3(1)(d) which states: "the site has been disconnected from electricity or water services for a period of 2 years or more." In most instances, that would mean the building is derelict or is at risk of being derelict. There are instances where people can be living in a habitable building but be disconnected from water and electricity services. I think there is some onus on them to be connected to water services and wastewater services. There are reasons, including ecological reasons for people to be disconnected from these services. Did the Cathaoirleach consider that with his wording? We obviously would not want somebody who was living in a house, generating their own electricity, collecting water from a spring rainwater and so forth as some people do-----
I think the Deputy is referring to people who are off the grid.
Some people can live very well in those circumstances. We would not want them getting caught-----
I suppose somebody could have a well. They could have an on-site private wastewater treatment plant. They could have a load of solar panels, batteries and a small turbine within that urban settlement. They would be disconnected from water and electricity. However, it would not be apparently derelict. It is not that we would go out and source dereliction solely by that criterion. However, if there is a building that does not look obviously derelict but is disconnected from water and electricity, it could be an indication.
I would not want anything in the Bill to be used vexatiously by some neighbour who is not happy that there is this slightly alternative house in the neighbourhood.
The bunch of hippies next door.
Yes. These are real-world situations.
True.
I know people who live in those situations who use rainwater, get water from springs up the mountain and all the rest.
It may not be within the settlement, but it is worth considering.
It may not be within settlements, but what if they are?
That is true.
That is my only reservation with the Bill.
We could probably allow an appeals process under that particular fairly unique situation.
Perhaps that section could have slightly different wording such as a site that has been disconnected from electricity or water services for a period of two or more years and is not self-generating.
Yes.
Something to be considered arose from our committee sessions. In jurisdictions that have much tighter control, observance and actions on dereliction and vacancy, there is provision for "meanwhile use". Somebody who does not want their building to fall under the derelict sites Act, can offer it up so that it is providing some sort of social community benefit and is therefore left out of this. As the Deputy knows, such successful "meanwhile use" can generate other actions, other businesses and other footfall, and can act as a catalyst to bring life into it. That is another good reason for trying to introduce it.
The Deputy spoke about NOAC. I have often thought that NOAC's range of observance of local authorities could be expanded into other areas. It should possibly be reporting on the amount of active travel being done on a yearly basis - footpaths, cycle paths, segregated and partial footpaths. If we are bringing representatives of NOAC before the committee, we could have a discussion with them on it.
I wish to make two very small observations. It would not be possible to compel a local authority to impose a CPO in legislation. First, it is a reserve function of the executive because it is capital expenditure. More importantly, a local authority can only impose a CPO on a building for social housing with the approval of the Department and with the necessary funding. The capital funding a local authority has is determined by the Department and not by the local authority in accordance with targets that are "agreed" with the local authority but usually set by the Department centrally.
Where local authorities are minded to acquire refurbished buildings for social housing, they will make two complaints. First, they will say that it can often be very difficult to get sanction from the Department to purchase but also they get no upfront reassurance of refurbishment costs. I had a conversation with a housing manager outside Dublin. That local authority wanted to acquire and eventually, I think, did acquire a large town centre historic building that had real potential for multi-unit occupancy. Initially it opted not to buy it because there was no guarantee of being able to cover the refurbishment costs. Often it is only when the local authority buys the building and starts to do the detailed survey work that it knows what it will cost. In the end, given the significance of the building for the particular urban portion of the city, the manager decided to take a risk that it would eventually get agreement from the Department. However, chief executives are Accounting Officers and need to balance the books. Therefore, it would be very rare for such a risk to be taken.
There was the occupation of a building in North Frederick Street by Take Back the City. They argued that that building should have been subject to a CPO. The challenge for Dublin City Council at that stage was that the full cost of buying and refurbishing that building would probably have been about €1.5 million if not more and it would have resulted in five units of accommodation. Under its social housing plan, the local authority would have been able to deliver far greater numbers of units for that amount of money at that time. It did not make sense for the housing manager to impose a CPO on the building and only get five units when the local authority could get eight units through another procedure.
That then flips over to the Cathaoirleach's question about the Minister. Having a reporting mechanism to the Minister would have another advantage. Right now, if the Chair or I want the information, we have to go to each local authority and correlate it. Local authorities have different reporting mechanisms for different data. If we put in a parliamentary question to the Minister to ask for that information, he will say that is a matter for the local authorities. Allowing Deputies to be able to ask the Minister to provide the information would allow us to be able to ask the Minister what funding his Department is providing to those local authorities that want to apply CPOs. I know it is not the primary reason the Cathaoirleach is proposing that reporting mechanism, but the more I think about it, the more I think it would have a real material value. Far too often when we ask questions of the Minister, particularly about reserve functions of local authorities, he says it is nothing to do with him.
I am emphasising the point that I still think that section of the Bill should include reporting to the housing section of the local authority. I am increasingly convinced that a reporting function to the Minister would be very useful. We could then invite the Minister to appear before the committee, say local authorities have told him there are X thousand and ask what he is doing about it. The Minister might say that is a matter of applying CPOs locally but we could ask if he is providing refurbishment funding.
One of the best local authority social housing refurbishment projects I have seen is Ellis Court, Dublin 7, just off Benburb Street. If the Chairman has not gone to it, he should contact Tuath Housing and go and see it. It was one of the very first social housing projects by the old Dublin Corporation in the 19th century.
It is an old tenement-style four-storey Victorian red-brick building or complex. It had been very unpopular tenement social housing in the late 19th and early 20th century. Much of it had been vacant and in a very bad state of dereliction for some time. There was a homeless hostel in one part of it, and then it was derelict. That complex was refurbished. I cannot remember the number of social units that are now occupied, but let us imagine it is 20 to 30. It is in an urban location in some of the most expensive prime real estate. They kept the entire structure of the 19th century Victorian building, so all of the embodied carbon objectives are met. It has produced really exceptionally high-quality social homes, including ground-floor disability adapted units. That was done for €400,000 per unit of accommodation. If you demolished the building and built apartments, it would cost €500,000 per unit of accommodation. That does not include the demolition and embodied carbon costs.
When I talked to people in Tuath - and I had been out on site with the development manager at the time - while they spoke very highly of the heritage officer in Dublin City Council, the city architect, Ali Grehan, and the housing department, the number of hoops they had to jump through, particularly with the Department, to get the funding released to do what is an exceptional project took a huge amount of time. I am only giving that by way of example. It goes back to the point I made at the start in my own Bill. There is a really good AHB and really good council officials but the system militates against them. Yet despite all that, they were able to do it. If the Minister had all that information, just from a public scrutiny and pressure point of view, that would be a really valuable tool. I am saying to keep the Minister in but to consider adding the local authority housing department.
That is a good point.
And by the way, I do my own site visits. I know I do not generally come on the ones organised by the committee, but people should go to see Ellis Court. It is the best example I have seen of that kind of reuse of existing buildings. I had a long conversation with a pensioner who lives there and who had lived in residential accommodation somewhere else. It is life-transforming stuff. Not only are you doing right by the urban fabric of the city, architectural heritage and embodied carbon, you are also transforming people's lives, which is the whole point of this.
When we had the Peter McVerry Trust in before, we discussed the challenges of that. It has done quite a bit of that kind of refurbishment.
It is doing the Townsend Street at the moment. Again, it is one of the 19th century or early 20th century social housing projects that was derelict for a very long time.
And it is difficult to do because you are dealing with traffic management, neighbours, deliveries, limited site scope -----
It is no more difficult to do than demolish and rebuild, which is the default option. Again, Ellis Court is the example. When I asked what was the all-in development cost, they had to go away and get the agreement of the chief executive to agree it, I thought it was going to be astronomically expensive over and above a standard development. It was tenanted earlier this year and late last year. To bring that in at €400,000 a unit is exceptionally good value for money, and that is before you add in the external costs of demolition and embodied carbon savings so it is even cheaper again.
And architecturally attractive as well.
And it is on the Luas line. If you think inner city sites are difficult that is literally where the Luas passes before you get to Croppies Acre. Sorry for going off.
On the CPO, is it that local authorities are only allowed to CPO a building for the provision of social housing?
No, the issue is what section of a local authority is going to compulsorily purchase a building. Obviously, the housing department can do it . If there is a development department or if it is a local authority with economic development functions, they might do it for commercial reasons. If we are talking about compulsorily purchasing properties by the housing department for either social housing or affordable housing or, in some cases, for refurbishment and sale on the open market, and that is permissible. It is not the CPO rules but the funding rules for local authority that kick in. A local authority is not allowed to spend any capital funding on a building or the acquisition of a building without departmental approval. There are unit price ceilings. They are not allowed go above a certain price for the purchase of it. Those unit pricings do not take into account refurbishment costs. They have to be applied for separately. Refurbishment costs are not agreed in principle at the point of purchase but agreed afterwards. The local authority housing manager would have to justify, if they have a capital budget of X and they have to deliver Y number of homes, why would they spend a portion of X buying and refurbishing when the unit cost may be more expensive than, say, a suburban infill development in my administrative area, where I could develop more social homes? In some ways, the funding mechanisms for local authorities to do social and affordable housing absolutely militate against what happened with Ellis Court, for example. A local authority could probably not have done Ellis Court. Tuath Housing just took a decision that it would be a really good thing for it to persevere with a project and then be able to use it as an exemplar. No local authority manager would have taken that on. Under the current rules, It would not have succeeded. That makes no sense. In fact, in the urban core, that should be the default option. It should almost be that you have to justify why you are not going to do that. They were buildings that Tuath had to buy from the local authority. They were public buildings. If you are acquiring a private derelict for the purposes of mixed-use social housing, the level of risk on a local authority chief executive housing manager is expediential and the entire funding system militates against the taking of risk. I am not arguing that people should be reckless with the money. It is simply that Ellis Court is such a good example of that, and it stacks up financially.
I thank Deputy Ó Broin. We will discuss how we will advance the three which we discussed today at our first private meeting in January.
Can I just confirm we are still meeting in private session on Tuesday, 11 January just to do the pre-legislative scrutiny report?
Correct. We will meet on Tuesday, 19 January at 11 a.m. to finalise the pre-legislative scrutiny report on the general scheme of the residential tenancies (right to purchase) Bill.
As this is our final public meeting of the year, I want to take the opportunity to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and to thank everyone for their very collegial work this year. We got through another huge amount of work. I thank the secretariat for all the work it does to pull it all together.
Here, here. And for putting up with us.
Yes. Thank you everybody.
